We'll Always Have This

Chapter 2

Natasha held Barnes's face in her hands for a long moment, longer than perhaps was necessary. She understood what it was to have such an atrocious past, to be so full of shame, guilt, and self-loathing. She'd had no place in the world, but she did now and a debt she could probably never repay for her past life.

Unmasked, standing like this before her, no longer the cold, vicious, and efficient assassin, she realised he was very handsome. His jaw was defined, and his eyes were the palest of blue. They had previously appeared dark and menacing, but they were icy, almost clear silver. His metal arm rested upon her bare hip, not resisting or pulling away, just being. In such proximity, Natasha realised he smelled wonderful a pleasant, warm, musky smell, no false fragrances, a pleasant soapy smell. She pulled his head towards her until his forehead rested upon hers. His eyes didn't falter from hers; something in her stomach knotted, and a long-forgotten urge stirred in her core that she tried to ignore.

"It was the job, and you never had a choice taking it."

He took a shaky exhale, placing his hands upon hers on his face and removing them, "I know, but I did it. It was still me, my actions, blood on my hands. My memories. Me."

"It's the past; we can't fix it, and we can't change it. I've spent years trying. We are more than what was, don't let it define you. You're not the Winter Soldier anymore."

He took a step away from her, she released him, and his fingers lingered upon hers until he dropped back onto the couch, resigned, and rubbed his face.

"I'm not so sure about that. I don't know what or who I am." She followed and sat at his side. "I don't know why I'm telling you any of this."

She placed a hand upon his leg and felt him flinch slightly at her touch, "Because you're alone, you need to tell someone, and despite what you might think, we're alike, you and I; we're the same. I understand like no one else ever could. Ex-assassins. Before I defected, the things I did, the blood on my hands," her voice caught in her throat as she recalled the innocent blood she'd spilt to end the Red Room. "So much red on my ledger. You feel you can never wipe away that much debt."

Bucky swept his hair behind his ears and searched her face. He saw a truth, a mirror image of his past reflected in her. Natasha was the Black Widow, a trained killer responsible for death and pain before her defection. Now an ex-assassin, joining the Avengers had not erased her past, but she was making amends. She was accepting him despite all he'd done, including to her.

Natasha felt free to be seen and understood so simply.

Bucky looked down at Natasha's hand resting upon his leg and tentatively placed his over hers before closing his eyes with a sad sigh, "I've been the Winter Soldier longer than I've been James Buchanan Barnes. The Winter Soldier's not gone. He's still in there, in me."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Conditioning. I fought it initially, Hydra's behavioural conditioning, hoping Steve would save me again, but he never came. So, in the end, they forced my submission, my compliance."

"How?"
Natasha already knew the answer; it would be the same way they had forced hers. Pain, psychological punishment, preying on your vulnerable insecurities, making you feel alone, worthless, nothing, then extending a hand, a purpose with praise and fake kindness.

"There are no prisoners with Hydra. Only order and order only comes through pain. Pain, electro-convulsive shocks through my brain, turning it to soup," his metal fingers reached for his temple as he said it. "Every time I came out of cryo, after every mission, every time I resisted or began to remember who I was, there were the shocks. They made me hyper-aware and highly suggestible and wiped away every memory I had. Who I was before, of everyone I knew and every mission I completed, but the effect didn't last long."